Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Handel - Belshazzar

George Frideric Handel - BelshazzarGrand Théâtre de Provence, Festival Aix-en-Provence, 2008Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik, RIAS Kammerchor, Christof Nel, René Jacobs,
Kenneth Tarver, Rosemary Joshua, Bejun Mehta, Kristina Hammarström Harmonia MundiBelshazzar, written in 1744,
was among the first English oratorios composed by Handel after he had
abandoned the Italian opera form, and consequently has an interesting
place among the composer’s works, still retaining some the dramatic
content and style of opera composition. The dramatic content comes about
due to the nature of the subject, which is biblical in nature, if not
entirely a religious piece of work. So while there are contemplative
hymns to God and fervent pleas for deliverance sung throughout, the
historical and religious conflicts means that there is a bit more
variety to the content and the tone, as well as the opportunity for a
staging to apply other meaningful references that could have some
present-day significance.Taking place in 539BC, the
Babylon of King Belshazzar is under siege from Cyrus, Prince of the
Medes and Persians. The king’s mother Nitocris has a grim foreboding
that the city will fall, and this is confirmed by the prophet Daniel.
Cyrus has comes up with a plan to divert the Euphrates, and enter the
city through its channel while Belshazzar and his men are celebrating
the feast of Sesach, the god of wine. Despite warnings and pleas from
Nitocris and Daniel, Belshazzar uses the occasion to extend the
drunkenness to sacrilegious behaviour that horrifies the Jewish
population that are held in captivity in the city. Cyrus enters the city
and liberates the Jews from bondage, promising to set up a new
Jerusalem.The plot is not overly
complicated for a three-act, almost three-hour oratorio, but there is a
certain amount of dramatic ground to cover, which means that there is
more opera seria-like recitative in Balshazzar, and consequently, it may
not be always quite as musical and melodious as later Handel oratorios.
And if the individual sections are not the most memorable or notable
Handel however, the impact of the oratorio is on a dramatic level and in
the piece as a whole. It’s staged here for the Aix-en-Provence Festival
in 2008 by Christof Nel in a manner that doesn’t set any modern agenda
or updated interpretation of the work, letting the dramatic action be
dictated by the words of the libretto. One can see nonetheless that
Belshazzar is not just a biblical or historical work, but that it
applies as much to the role of a monarch or ruler, which has meaning for
the period that the work was written, as well as having relevance to
present-day conflicts not so far away from where this is set in
antiquity.René Jacobs conducts the Berlin
Akademie für Alte Musik and the RIAS Kammerchor through a fine live
performance of Belshazzar at Aix. The singing in English, from
principals and chorus soloists alike, is uniformly wonderful across the
whole range of voices – tenor, counter-tenor, soprano, mezzo-soprano,
bass and male alto – that Handel brilliantly composes for and blends
together. Bejun Mehta (whose crystal clear countertenor can also be
heard to terrific effect in a recent production of Handel’s Theodora) is
notable here as Cyrus and Kenneth Tarver is fine as Belshazzar, but
even more impressive are Rosemary Joshua as Nitocris and Kristina
Hammarström as Daniel. Such fine singing could not have been easy either
with the acting demanded – a drenched Tarver clearly finds it too much –
but a good balance between both is achieved in the staging.I’m not entirely happy with the
HD transfer on the Blu-ray from Harmonia Mundi. Even though it’s on a
BD50 disc, the encoding is not great, resulting in a faint jerkiness and
blurring when there is movement on the screen. The effect may be
variable on different players with better refresh rates, but this is the
first BD I’ve come across with such a problem. There isn’t enough
movement on the screen for this to become a significant issue, but it
could be a minor irritation. The audio tracks are in the standard PCM
Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 and are both fine for the demands of
the orchestration and the singing. Subtitles are in English, French and
German only. Other than a text synopsis, there are no extra features on
the Blu-ray disc.